KARMIC BALANCE BLOWS – SIMMONDS TO STAY IN LOS ANGELES

A wonderful win, an inspired performance by many players and a well deserved breath of relief to finish off a home stand gone horrible wrong ending in the right way, only to bolstered undeservedly by a major caveat…

Luckily, this road trip is only two games in two days. Unluckily, the fact that it is two games in two days in two cities makes that extra energetic body all the more precious. Simmonds has been finding his game lately and is clicking with Sturm and Stoll, helping to give Sturm the breakout party he’s been waiting for since last May, and buoying Stoll to some semblance of useful offensive play.

You can see video of Simmonds’ injury during the scrum after Doughty’s delicious hit on Taylor Hall.

Ales Hemsky yanked Simmonds down, his arms around Wayne’s throat after Dustin Penner jumped on Doughy, quickly followed by the rest of the bodies on the ice. Though it is currently described as a lower body injury, its fairly easy to see that Wayne’s knee (possibly ankle) is not feeling very well. That Simmonds will be getting an MRI tomorrow only lends credence to the theory that the injury is somewhere in the knee.

The win last night infused enough positivity in me to allow me to believe Simmonds has only suffered a minor injury, a tweak, but we have all seen what a knee injury can do to a player. This is also not Simmonds’ first knee injury. If you recall he suffered one last year, had minor surgery, and came back too soon and his play suffered initially for not allowing proper time to heal. Two knee injuries by his 3rd season scares the hell out of me.

Its a shame it went down this way, as a 10 player pile up was not really necessary after Doughty rocked Hall. If anything, the Oilers should have been thanking Doughty as he taught the young Hall a valuable lesson – keep your head up or pay the piper.